Fashion Bootcamp: Week 2

My mind is spinning with all of the magnificence that is life in New York. I hardly know where to start. Since school is my number one priority, I suppose I should start there. Last weekend, I spent the majority of my time getting my life together, as I like to call it. I had to organize in a major way. With the speed and scope of the classes, I have to be at the top of my game at all times. I received my textbooks in the mail and I don't think these will ever make it to buyback, since they will be great references for years to come.

I was officially trained on threading the JUKI and I already feel more comfortable with the speed. I'm telling you, I'll be a pro in no time.

I drew my first nude model in Life Drawing on Thursday. My sketching started off a little rough but then I started to get the hang of it. It was difficult for me not to alter her body and stretch it out the way we do in Fashion Art & Design. Personal observation: There's something a little funny about people that work as nude models... strange breed, they are.

One of my biggest highlights on Thursday was when I received my first "A" in Structured Silhouettes! You don't even know how nervous I was about being graded. I tend to be very critical of myself, but its only because I take pride in what I do and have very high expectations for myself. I always strive to be a better person.

In my last post, I mentioned that we were drawing croquis in Fashion Art & Design and here are a few examples of some figures with shifted balance. These are used as guidelines for when we add our garment designs. Even though these croquis are very standard as far as proportion, my croquis are still very different than the croquis of others in my class. Everyone has their own style and I am very interested to see how my figures evolve.

Speaking of evolution, I am only including these face renderings for the purpose of documenting my progression. These were experimentations and they need some tweaking but I think I am heading in the right direction, minus the fake-baking look.

On the subject of Fashion Illustration, today our class was introduced to a legend in the field. Steven Stipleman is an amazing old-school Fashion Illustrator (put his name into google images) and now he is a professor in the Fashion Design department at FIT. He spoke with us about submitting a portfolio application for the Art Specialization Track, which is of great interest to me. Only 25 students are chosen for the Art concentration and the other 275 students in the Associate Fashion Design program, combining the 1-year and 2-year programs, will automatically continue in the Apparel concentration. I'm still unsure what the benefits of each track are, so I still have to weigh my options. Either way, my options are looking very good.